AVGN: The Karate Kid

Episode notes by Mike:
For this third episode The Karate Kid (NES), once again James was at my place and we were playing some of my NES games. We played The Karate Kid and laughed at all the flaws in the game. This episode is like a hybrid of the first two videos. It combined the game footage with the nerd character we all know today. This was the episode that got me really excited about the idea of this as a show.
Back in 2005, James and I had a job working together editing corporate training videos. And at the time, these first three episodes (Bad NES Games) were only available to watch as Quicktime files on the first version of the site.
Back then, I would watch this episode over and over laughing hysterically about it. James only intended these three videos to be a trilogy. But I liked this Karate Kid video so much that I kept pestering him to do another one. Eventually, James agreed to make more. (Probably just to get me to shut up about it!)

Comments

nicestpartsofhell

April 10, 2010 at 6:09 pm

Yeah… I definitely remember how fucking bad this game was. It was like fate brought us together. I was young, and didn’t know what I was getting myself into when I met Karate Kid at a flea market. I played it and thought, ok, this isn’t so bad. You chop ice, catch flies with chopsticks, and play chicken with a swinging razor or whatever the fuck it was. But then, just as James shows us. It becomes the most cheap, asshole, rotten fucking game on the planet. And just like he said, you can’t stop fucking playing it until you beat it. I’m only commenting about this, because I was in my attic the other day and found it. It made me so mad. So mad that it’s been hiding amongst my things for years and years. So I took it out back and hit it with a hammer until I was satisfied that it could never be played again. I then burned it, and watched as the remnants of the game’s title sticker bubbled and disappeared. And then I pissed on it. And now I feel all better. Don’t save these shitty games and expose your kids to them. Just destroy them..

This game brought shame to Karate Kid like a whore to a Christian family. Seriously though this game at the time was fun to me but it was fucking hard. I think I beat it but it took such a long time to do it. The first three levels were pretty easy but those mobs of idiots and mini games are cheap. Then you get to that damn last level and you get fucked in the ass by those spear guys that look like it’s coming out of there dicks. And yeah the controls are so finicky and LJN can suck my balls.

Well, the game is bad, of course, but it’s safe to say that this is the worst AVGN episode ever. I mean, ok, he does those little screams at the beginning, and gives the nice ‘Impossible Pit’ example, but almost the whole video he seems to don’t know what to say. He’s like ‘Oh, this game sucks and… Well it sucks… and…’ I mean, he doesn’t say funny things about it. And in the end, after finishing it, he stands in front of the camera in silence. That’s boring. Then he puts the game in the toilet, but there’s of course a cut.

I know that this is the first episode of the Nerd as a series, but I don’t care! FUCK THIS VIDEO!

But here’s my point: when it’s easy to tell what’s your favourite thing in a group it means that the whole thing sucks. But when you easily find the worst in the group, it means that it’s good in general (for example you can easly say what’s your favourite song of a bad singer, because he made only a few, while it’s impossible to tell the best Michael Jackson song, but you can easly find the one that you like the least). And this is the demonstration of how the Nerd series is awesome and I love it!

Speaking of games that came from things much better than their adaptations, Lord of the Rings for SNES was probably the first time I was ever disappointed with a video game adaptation. Ironically, I still have the cartridge. The only reason I ever fire it up is for the music. At least there were many subsequent and superior adaptations, although those were movie based. Kind of weird.

The thing about the Karate Kid NES game is that it totally teaches the very opposite lesson the film does. I mean, in the movie, you get the feeling you can become a karate champion out of the blue in a few months and defeat people who have been training their whole lives just because they’re assholes. In the game, guess what? Karate is fucking hard motherfuckers, go and practice and kill your thumbs off.

I love how there’s these random ass comments from people like “I can appreciate incest.” Like, really dude? I…I…*guess* I can totally see the appeal of wanting to fuck a family member…and then have all these awkward moments afterwards like at thanksgiving dinner and christmas…yeah totally… The convenience of being able to go down to your sister’s room for some ass, or being able to ask your mom for some head instead of actually going out into the real world and interacting with other people TOTALLY outweighs the shame, humiliation, guilt, and complete and utter nauseatingness of it all!